Cisco is part of a $10 million extended financing round for quantum computing startup Qunnect.
Cisco Investments joins round leader Airbus Ventures and venture capital fund Quantonation in backing Qunnect, a network hardware company that has designs on building quantum communication systems using existing telecom fiber. The company is working with industry partners to develop turnkey variants of its Carina suite, which includes repeaters, sensors and other components for building distributed quantum networking facilities.
For example, the startup’s QU‑Source product generates polarization‑entangled photon pairs with one photon telecom‑compatible and the other optimized for memory storage, eliminating the need for additional frequency converters. Qunnect says that its commercially available hardware is designed to operate at room temperature rather than being limited to laboratory settings with temperatures around absolute zero (−273.15 °C or −459.67 °F).
In partnership with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs, Qunnect has set up quantum networking testbeds in New York City and Berlin.
“Qunnect understands that quantum networking has to work in the real world, not just in pristine lab conditions,” Vijoy Pandey, general manager and senior vice president of Outshift by Cisco, stated in a blog about the investment. “Their room-temperature approach aligns with our quantum data center vision.”
Cisco recently announced it is developing a quantum entanglement chip that could ultimately become part of the gear that will populate future quantum data centers. The chip operates at room temperature, uses minimal power, and functions using existing telecom frequencies, according to Pandey.
The Cisco research prototype, developed in cooperation with University of California, Santa Barbara, generates pairs of entangled photons that instantly transmit quantum state between each other, regardless of the distance between them, through what’s known as quantum teleportation, Pandey, told Network World recently. “Qunnect’s approach fits right into our broader quantum networking strategy. We’re not just building one-off research prototypes – we’re creating the infrastructure for a real quantum internet,” Pandey said. “Qunnect has been collaborating with us for some time now, customizing their solutions based on our vision. It’s collaborations like this that move us from interesting research to deployable quantum networking solutions.”
Source:: Network World